Autodesk Developer Network

July 11, 2014

Autodesk Cloud Operations will be performing the monthly Microsoft security maintenance to our windows server and virtualization infrastructure environments this week. This activity will require brief outages to the following applications:

To implement these changes, the servers will experience downtime from 2:00 p.m. PDT on Saturday, July 12 through 5:00 p.m. PDT on Saturday, July 12. In Greenwich, this would be 12:00 a.m. UDT on Sunday, July 13 through 3:00 a.m. UDT on Sunday, July 13.

Thank you for your patience. We appreciate your continued interest in cloud technologies from Autodesk.

March 13, 2014

Today in North America I am proud to share that Autodesk launched Autodesk Instant, a group messaging app for the workplace on iOS and Android. Autodesk Instant makes it easy for coworkers to instantly communicate no matter where they are and exchange messages, photos, video, and location. Colleagues can initiate conversations with anyone in their address book, or any other colleague who has verified their email with the app. I have had a fondness for solutions like this since my Buzzsaw (a.k.a., ProjectPoint.exe) days.

Autodesk has over 30 years of experience understanding professional workflows, and we are continually exploring ways to increase collaboration among distributed teams. In 1998, when we created our internal department that eventually spun out on its own as Buzzsaw.com, we were called the Design Team Solutions Group. Today we can see many of our professional industry customers who need improved mobile project-based collaboration benefiting from this tool. Autodesk Instant also provides a cheaper alternative to SMS, and the team tells me that corporate administration controls and integration access to web tools will be added in future versions of the app.

February 07, 2014

Autodesk VP/IPG CTO, Brian Mathews, was on our team when he invented the DWF format. Our first foray into sharing design data via the internet was a WHIP! plug-in for the Netscape Navigator browser. Internet Explorer had not really emerged on the scene yet. Sun Microsystems had just released Java, so we wanted to call our files whip files (.whp) so you could whip design data all around the web. AutoCAD VP, John Lynch, worried that people would not associate the solution with Autodesk, so we called them Drawing Web Format (DWF) files (.dwf). When applications other than AutoCAD were able to create these files, the name was evolved to Design Web Format (DWF). So I have been a DWF proponent from the very onset. My first blog was Beyond the Paper that was based on what could be done with DWF files instead of just printing them.

Customers have noticed that there was no release of Autodesk Design Review for 2014. They feared that Autodesk was dropping support for DWF. This was of particular concern to Autodesk Vault users where DWF files are an integral part of the solution. This is also a concern for reprography shops who took our advice and archived data as DWF files instead of TIF since DWF files could be scaled up or down to fit the paper without loss of visual fidelity. Adding fuel to the fire is that we shut down Autodesk Freewheel at the end of January. This particularly affected users who purchased McDwiff from the Apple store. McDwiff hosts an Autodesk Freewheel display inside of a native iOS window on iPads.

Program Manager, Susan Scott, has also been with DWF since the early days. Susan recently shared an email with me that I thought I would share with you.

A couple of weeks ago, we received a request about DWF files that were too large for Autodesk Design Review (ADR) to open. After I explained that ADR would not be updated, I have been helping customers find work-arounds. Along with finding some short-term solutions, I reached out to our ADR and DWF teams. Here is a high-level summary status of ADR and DWF:

DWF is definitely NOT dead.

We are investing significant resources on a cloud solution that will allow the sharing of models without sharing the source. This solution will also build collaboration tools because that is one of the strengths of a cloud solution.

To prove that we are strongly investing into DWF, we already are loading bigger DWF files than ADR can and will be making them available to the workflow of the cloud applications like Autodesk 360, Fusion 360, etc. AutoCAD WS is planning the same for the 2D side of things. Eventually they will merge into Autodesk 360 viewing that covers both aspects.

ADR will have less and less value as the cloud solution matures.

The cloud solution is being built in stages and handling larger DWF files is part of that roadmap. Our cloud-teams are looking at Customer Improvement Program (CIP) data from ADR on the most commonly used ADR features today. This will guide their efforts in rounding out our cloud functionality.

I hope this clears up some of the mystery about what is going on with Autodesk Design Review and the DWF format. With regard to Autodesk Freewheel, we shut it down because:

The functionality of viewing DWF files is available using Autodesk 360 via the public sharing option. People who publish designs as DWF files need to be members of Autodesk 360, but viewers of those designs do not.

Autodesk 360 is a superset of the functionality provided by Autodesk Freewheel. We want our customers to experience all of what Autodesk 360 has to offer. There is also a desktop application alternative of Navisworks for users who need more powerful capabilities.

When customers supplied Autodesk Freewheel with URLs to DWF files on their servers, the first thing Freewheel did was load a copy on to its server and leave it there forever. Every time someone viewed a DWF file, Freewheel checked the one in its local cache to make sure its DWF file was current and used the local one unless the original had changed (also subject to caching time-outs). Users did not have the ability to remove DWF files from Autodesk Freewheel. Autodesk 360 allows file owners (who log in using their credentials) to remove their files and change permissions.

Autodesk Freewheel is 7 year old technology. A lot has changed. The native viewing experience for Autodesk 360 is based on today's modern HTML technologies instead of old MapQuest-like PNG images that need to be regenerated with every zoom, orbit, or widespread pan command.

Autodesk Freewheel needed to be maintained separately from the 24/7 monitoring in place for Autodesk 360. Autodesk is conducting security audits of its existing web properties. As an old technology, Autodesk Freewheel would not have fared well by such an analysis.

Autodesk will continue to offer desktop applications bundled into Suites for years to come; however, eventually you are going to want to do everything from your mobile phone or tablet device. Yes we could port our powerful applications to iPhones and the wide variety of flavors of Android devices, attempting to account for the particulars of each one, or we can make our applications available as services from servers in the cloud with lots of CPU power and memory suited to the job. Rather than port solutions like Autodesk Design Review to the cloud/mobile/social world, we will offer cloud-based services to supplant the functionality. Until that time, customers can download, install, and use Autodesk Design Review 2013.

ADDITION 1 BASED ON COMMENTS: The "cloud architecture" is the way forward. Solutions will start with the public cloud and then eventually move to the private cloud. One day you will have a local server in the middle of nowhere — where there is no internet connectivity. Scientists, engineers, and workers (i.e., all team members) will all be using desktops, laptops, phones, and tablets to look at one source of truth (i.e., huge data file on the server) via a local area network instead of everyone having their own copy of the data (i.e., DWF file) that could be out of date. There will also be offline mode support for temporary disconnections from servers like when people travel on airplanes, although more and more flights nowadays seem to be equipped with internet access.

ADDITION 2: Although private cloud support is a ways off, we do have Autodesk Remote today. You can host our applications on your own servers today and access them via your local area network — no internet connectivity required.

July 22, 2013

Every once in a while, I focus a blog article on a member of the Autodesk Labs community. Today's blog article features Subir Kumar Dutta. Subir is a Trainer and Consultant at DCS — Design Automation Consultancy Services.
DCS provides corporate and personal (in batch) training on CAD customizations and Design Automation.

Subir is based in Pune, India. He loves to do fun things with the AutoCAD product line. Subir develops small applications on his own using the AutoCAD API to motivate new students to learn it. Subir has his own YouTube channel where you can too can witness the fun he is having:

The ADN Plugin of the Month program was intended to encourage this type of fun. Though the program is no longer active on Autodesk Labs (i.e., no new plugins coming), you can still download the plugins that were created as part of the program or visit the App Center to get the latest ones:

The Labs plugins include the source code, so if you wish to modify them to better suit your own needs, you too can have the fun. Actually Subir is open to making his plugins available as plugins of the month. You can express your opinion as to which ones he should package up, including the source code, to labs.plugins@autodesk.com.

July 10, 2013

The Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) is a thriving partnership between Autodesk and those who develop applications that add customer value to our products. In July of 2009, Kean Walmsley (Through the Interface) approached me about setting up an ADN Plugin of the Month program on Autodesk Labs. The idea was that we would feature a new plugin each month and include its source code to encourage people to develop their own plugins as well as showcase some of the fine work of our ADN members. Now that we have the Autodesk Exchange Apps site in place, we can end the technology preview on Labs.

The old plugins can still be downloaded from the Autodesk Labs site. For Autodesk Subscription customers who want plugins that are compatible with 2013 and 2014 releases, the graduated versions can be found on the Exchange Apps site. For your convenience, I have provided links to old and new downloads on the Autodesk Labs page.

Thanks to all of the ADN members who submitted plugins over the last 4 years and to all of the Labs community members who provided feedback to help improve these plugins. Thanks to Kean Walmsley, Jim Quanci, and Stephen Preston who provided Autodesk ADN support.

March 11, 2013

From their about page: "Sketchfab is a web service to publish interactive 3D content online in real-time without [requiring users who want to view your 3D content to download/install] a plugin. The world we live in is in 3D, but the web is still in 2D, and we want to change that. We think your 3D models deserve something better than screen shots or "show reel" videos. That's why we created Sketchfab. We understand 3D and bring it to the web."

This month's free ADN plugin was created by Klaas Nienhuis. Both Klaas and Sketchfab are Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) members. The plug-in can be used to publish your models from 3ds Max and show your 3d models directly on Sketchfab — an online platform for viewing 3d models directly in your browser. This is very convenient for communication with clients or presentations. Check it out for yourself:

One of our ulterior motives for providing the source code with the plugins of the month is that we want you to see how easy it is to extend our design application functionality to specifically suit your needs. So check out the code as well as use the precompiled binaries for 64-bit 3ds Max. With a little bit of fiddling, you may make it compatible with the 32-bit version. As always, feel free to continue to share your thoughts with us at labs.plugins@autodesk.com.

February 06, 2013

On a TV network long, long ago, Late Night with David Letterman used to come on around midnight. With the hour being so late, Dave would do funny things like jump into water wearing a suit made of Alka Seltzer tablets. He would also drop things off of a building or run them over with a steamroller. I really enjoyed watching him break things.

So I have a certain affinity for this month's ADN Plugin of the Month. ExplodeGeometry for 3ds Max. The plugin was developed by Principal Developer Consultant, Kevin Vandecar, who reminded me that exploding geometry comes in handy when creating various animated effects. For example, he likes to create an explosion effect after splitting meshes into individual faces. Louis Marcoux, one of our 3ds Max Application Engineers, developed a simpler script to help a customer, and this plugin comes from that idea and makes it more flexible.

The plugin includes source code and is compatible with 3ds Max 2013. If you like, you can modify it to blow stuff up to your own liking. This may just inspire you to develop additional scripts of your own. You can let us know of your results at labs.plugins@autodesk.com.

January 23, 2013

As everything is moving to the cloud, I have become a DropBox user. I maintain the web site for my homeowners association. Sometimes I would be at work, and the site would need a small change -- something that would literally only take 5 minutes. In my old world, I would have to wait to make the change until I got home because the files for the site were on my home PC. Waiting 9 hours to make a 5 minute change was not optimal. Today by storing the files on DropBox, I can update them from either location. In addition, I can view them on my iPhone or iPad, but can't update them from those devices. As time goes on my guess is that device support will only get more and more capable.

Given this state of affairs, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that scanner manufacturers are getting involved on the DropBox ecosystem. Contex, one of our Autodesk partners, has a solution where you can scan a document right into your DropBox. It's called PageDrop and will be standard on Contex IQ 2490 devices. International Product Manager, Morten Nielsen, sent me the info below, and since the Autodesk Labs community is comprised of early adopters, I thought I would share it. Morten is looking for beta participants.

Contex PageDrop Beta

Make every scan personal.

Any PageDrop enabled Contex scanner can send documents directly to your preferred destinations. PageDrop does not require a PC. Instead it simply utilizes your smart phone or tablet to control the process. Load the document, scan the QR code, and send the document directly to your desired destination.

Get images where you need them.

Your PageDrop enabled Contex scanner is the first wide format scanner that truly works for you. The only choice you have to make, is where you need the documents - PageDrop handles the rest. PageDrop can deliver images by e-mail, directly into your DropBox and print to any of your HP ePrint enabled printers.

PageDrop is a Web App.

As a Web App PageDrop is supported on any smartphone or tablet with a QR reader and a browser.

PageDrop can be added in your iOS device (iPhone, iPad, etc.) as a Web App. Once you have scanned the QR code simply select "Add to home screen" in your iOS browser to create the Web App icon. Now you can bring up PageDrop directly from you iOS device whenever you need a scan.

On your Android device the same is possible. Simply add the web page to your favorites. From there you can add them to your start menu.

More to come...

As a Web App new destinations and features can be added without the need for updating your scanner. They will appear as soon as they are implemented on our PageDrop servers.

PageDrop is secure.

PageDrop includes a new pending patent that ensures a secure method for QR codes and Web Interfaces. PageDrop will only allow you to scan if you are in front of the scanner.

Once a scan is completed an e-mail notification will be sent to your inbox to let you know you document is ready for use.

The process is as easy as 1-2-3:

Touch the green button.

Select a destination.

The scanner starts scanning.

PageDrop Beta Testing

The first release of PageDrop is in Beta as we need your input to make this work the right way for you. PageDrop is a new way of scanning that changes everything. With your help the Beta program will allow us to create the right interfaces for your scanning devices.

Key features

Makes every PageDrop enabled scanner your personal scanner.

Supports any smart phone or tablet including iOS and Android based solutions.

Standard HTML5 web interface.

Images transferred directly from scanner to you destination.

All scans delivered as industry standard PDF.

Secure transfer though Contex PageDrop Servers.

Security enabled to protect your images.

Contact Morten Nielsen (mni@contex.com) for more information on the beta program.

Oh the times they are a changing. Now large format scanning is becoming as simple as it should be. Thanks Morten. Does anyone think scanning right from the device into Autodesk 360 would be a next logical step?

Each plugin of the month comes with a Read Me that is chock-full of information. This month's is no exception. From the Read Me:

MASH is a suite of Maya nodes, developed in-house at Mainframe, aimed at enabling their artists to create versatile 'motion design' style animations. It offers a selection of effector nodes which can be daisy-chained together to generate a wide variety of customizable effects. It's fully controllable from both Maya's Attribute and Node Editors.

MASH has been tested in Maya 2013 on both Mac and PC; however, it should work on all Maya versions back to 2010. The source code has been provided as Python source code available in the plug-ins folder after install. The 'Waiter' is the crux of MASH. It's a selection set, objects you drag onto the Waiter will be effected by the MASH network. The Waiters Attribute Editor is also the place to create nodes for the network, set the initial state for any objects and there's also a helper button to hook MASH up to a Maya instancer.

October 03, 2012

OK all you would-be programmers out there — the Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) Plug-in of the Month program was developed to show you just how easy it is to program one of our design application programs. Each month you can download a free plug-in for one of our design applications that includes the source code for plug-in.

This month's plug-in is LocatorLib for Autodesk Maya. In addition to the source code, each plug-in comes with a Read Me that tells you everything you'd ever want to know about the plug-in. This month's Read Me mentions: This plug-in allows users to create different shapes of locators other than Maya's internal built-in locator. It provides a custom command, which has 5 built-in flags, allowing users to create 4 different basic types of locator, specifically an oval-shape locator, a square-shape locator, a cube-shape locator and a sphere-shape locator. It also provides a 'custom' locator which allows the user to define his/her own locator shape with 2 functional modes.

Shape mode — The user can define a simple shape (2d or 3d) as a continuous closed polyline. This mode accepts files with a serie of 3d coordinates X, Y, Z.

Solid mode — The user can define a simple solid as a series of triangles. This mode accepts files with a series of 3d coordinates X, Y, Z for vertices, and then a series of triangle vertex indexes.

The plug-in has been tested with Autodesk Maya 2013 and 2013 Extension. Once installed, inside Maya, call the command 'LocatorLibCmd' with one of the following options:

-o or -oval to create an oval locator

-s or -square to create a square locator

-cu or -cube to create a cube locator

-sp or -sphere to create to create a sphere locator

-c or -custom to create a custom locator

You can also create an instance of the node locator by using the MEL command 'createNode':

createNode ovalLocator;

createNode squareLocator;

createNode cubeLocator;

createNode sphereLocator;

createNode customLocator;

You can provide feedback on this plug-in or any of the other plug-ins of the month.

August 02, 2012

With the emergence of the App store, I thought the ADN Plugin of the Month technology preview had run its course. So last month I was pleasantly surprised when Senior Manager of DevTech Americas, Stephen Preston, shared a new plugin with me for posting to the Autodesk Labs site. This month he provided me with another one for Maya:

This month's plug-in was written by Manager, Cyrille Fauvel, from the Autodesk Developer Network team. From the read me:

"This plug-in can be used in place of the Maya 'Expression' system. Maya's evaluation of 'Expressions' depends on the contents of the expression – sometimes you have to force evaluation - whereas, for a node, the Maya DG will always do it for you when needed. Debugging a Maya 'Expression' is not easy either (no tools are available), and requires a knowledge of MEL. Using the MathNode plug-in, you can use a Python debugger to debug the Node evaluation (see the Blog post for instructions on how to do that. In any case, it is always preferable to use self-contained nodes and connections over expressions whenever possible."

You can find all past plugins on the catalog page. The plugins provide functionality as supplied and also include the source code, so you too can consider developing your own plugins. If you like this plugin or have suggestions to make it better, please contact us at labs.plugins@autodesk.com.

July 12, 2012

I really thought the ADN Plugin of the Month technology preview had run its course. I thought Wall Chamfer and Fillet for Revit would be our last one. I was pleasantly surprised when Senior Manager of DevTech Americas, Stephen Preston, shared a new plugin with me for posting to the Autodesk Labs site:

It is very common that people use prefix to avoid asset clashing in Maya. It is easy to add a prefix to names on items, however removing prefixes can be very painful as there is no functionality to easily remove them within Maya. A node hierarchy may contain hundreds of objects and a user would need to expand the hierarchy and rename each object one by one. What a pain!

The Plugin of the Month technology preview has brought you a new plugin for the past 34 months. You can find all past plugins on the catalog page. The plugins provide nuggets of functionality as supplied and also include the source code, so you too can consider developing your own plugins. It looks like the technology preview will continue with the emphasis being on design applications for the Media & Entertainment industry, e.g., 3ds Max, Maya. If you like this plugin or have suggestions to make it better, please contact us at labs.plugins@autodesk.com.

June 27, 2012

Our plugins of the month provide nuggets of functionality. Since they come with the source code, they are also instructional aids for current users who are would-be programmers. The code shows how to extend Autodesk design applications. You can download all of the plugins of the month from the Autodesk Labs site.

Today I updated a batch of the AutoCAD plug-ins to add support for AutoCAD 2013.

Average Point for AutoCAD

DWF/PDF Batch Publish for AutoCAD

Browse Photosynth for AutoCAD

Clipboard Manager for AutoCAD

DigSigStamp for AutoCAD

Dimension Patrol for AutoCAD

Facet Curve for AutoCAD

Offset in Xref

RefUcsSpy for AutoCAD

Screenshot for AutoCAD

ScriptPro 2.0 for AutoCAD

Spiro for AutoCAD

Xref States for AutoCAD

So now AutoCAD 2013 users can experience the thrill of doing a little coding to personalize how AutoCAD behaves for their business needs. As always, feedback is welcome at labs.plugins@autodesk.com. The plugins are free - so what's not to like?

Autodesk Labs features some of the work of ADN via the Plugin of the Month program. You can download these plugins (which are ready to use as provided but also include the source code if you want to modify them):

Jim Quanci is Director of the ADN. He recently shared three success stories with us regarding ADN.

Singapore based ADN Partner, Manusoft, worked with Autodesk Consulting and the ASEAN Manufacturing Sales Team to deliver multiple licenses of Product Design Suites to two happy customers.

In both of these cases, Manusoft added new customer centric workflow enhancements inside Autodesk Inventor. With Manusoft’s solutions, these two customers were able to make better adoption of digital prototyping, unlock the value of design data beyond the design department, and help provide better customer service.

A major European electronics manufacturer recently reaped benefits from Autodesk Inventor and Autodesk Inventor IDF Modeler.

Autodesk Inventor IDF Modeler is developed and sold by Melbourne, Australia based - DesktopEDA. DesktopEDA's Inventor IDF Modeler product allows product designers to import electronics design data into Inventor, and also to send design changes from Inventor back to the electronics designer. The integrated Inventor and DesktopEDA solution enables collaboration between cross-functional teams, helps reduce costly errors, and reduces the number of prototypes.

CH2M Hill and its customer, a large semi-conductor manufacturer, recently upgraded and was able to leverage AutoCAD to run Flow Planner from US based Proplanner.

Use of the Proplanner flow analysis tool allows CH2M HILL's customer to lower its material handling system cost and lower production cycle times. ProPlanner's tools provide both manual Euclidian methods and complex automated algorithms to calculate aisle congestion, color-code material handling intensity and integrate into reporting tools. Semiconductor layout development is challenged by a complicated manufacturing process. The joint solution from Proplanner and Autodesk helps engineering services providers like CH2M HILL and manufacturers quickly identify the functional area configuration, forecast cost projections of the proposed facility, and set the basis for factory design.

So based on Jim's examples, it's great to see how ADN extends the ability of Autodesk design applications to improve design workflows. You too can be a part of that. Examples from the ADN Plugin of the Month are a great place to start.

June 06, 2012

The Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) Plugin of the Month program demonstrates what it takes to extend the functionality of Autodesk design applications. That's why each plugin comes with a detailed read me was well as the source code. Hopefully one of these plugins will inspire you to extend its functionality to suit your personal needs. This month's plugin is:

This month's plugin was written by Civil Engineering student, Dante Pinto, under the supervision of the Augusto Goncalves of Autodesk Developer Technical Services team. This plug-in can be used to create a chamfer or a fillet between two walls. The command allows you to select two walls and to specify distances along each wall from the intersection of two walls to create a chamfer and a radius for the fillet. The command then calculates the intersection, inserts the third wall representing a chamfer or a fillet, and adjusts the end points of the given walls.

The plugin has been tested with Autodesk Revit Architecture 2012 and 2013. Although the plugin has not been tested with all Revit verticals, it should work. Once installed, a "Wall Chamfer & Fillet" panel becomes available in the "Add-ins" tab of Revit.

As a free technology preview, the plugin does have some limitations. The chamfer/fillet wall will not be created when:

two walls reside in different levels.

two walls have different wall types.

two walls are not based on a straight line; e.g., curved walls.

two walls are parallel or coincident.

the given fillet size is bigger than the size of the wall.

These present opportunities for you to extend the functionality. Email us at labs.plugins@autodesk.com with feedback or requests for enhancements.

May 17, 2012

We post the Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) plugins of the month to encourage would-be developers to extend our design applications with a little bit of programming. We want everyone to see how easy it can be by providing the source code for the plugins as learning material. The collection of plugins, past and current, are available on the Autodesk Labs site:

Despite our regular "go ahead and try programming encouragement", we know some people just use the plugins, as is, for the free functionality they provide. With this in mind, sometimes the ADN team members update them in response to user feedback. That happened for 2 plugins on Friday, May 4, a.k.a. Star Wars Day.

Inventor Screenshot

What It Does: This plugin can be used with Inventor to simplify the process of capturing images of parts of documents, or the entire document or application windows. It optionally allows you to remap the background to white and the foreground to black, and convert the entire image to grayscale, as well as sending the capture image directly to a printer.

What was Fixed: Fixed the problem of selecting a region in perspective view. Fixed the problem of printing on a 64-bit OS.

Point Linker for Inventor

What It Does: Inventor can import point data from an Excel file, but once the data has been imported, the link with the Excel file is not retained. If the user then updates the point data in the Excel file, the data must be manually re-imported and the associated model re-constructed. This plugin allows Inventor users to import the points with the link of the excel file. The users can import data (like the old command), update with the new data, or resolve to another excel file.

What Was Fixed: Fixed an install problem related to Inventor 2012.

If you have the original versions of these plugins, you may wish to download the updated ones. They are available on the catalog page. As always we welcome your feedback to labs.plugins@autodesk.com.

In addition to Project Vasari itself, you can now download a Software Development Kit (SDK). This kit is intended for power users who wish to use the Application Program Interface (API) to work with Project Vasari.

The API allows a programmer to:

Create add-ins to automate repetitive tasks in the Project Vasari UI

Enforce project design standards by checking for errors automatically

Extract project data for analysis and to generate reports

Import external data to create new elements or parameter values

Integrate other applications, including analysis applications, into Project Vasari

May 01, 2012

Right on time! The ADN plugin of the month for May is eStorage for Autodesk Revit. This add-in stores and manages the contents of external files in Revit extensible storage on selected elements in the BIM model. You can download it for free from the Autodesk Labs web site:

Each plugin of the month includes a Read Me that contains everything you would ever want to know about a plugin:

This add-in provides the following commands:

Store: Store the data of an external file into Revit extensible storage on a selected element. This command prompts you to select an external file and a Revit BIM element and stores the file data into Revit extensible storage.

StoreOnType: Store the data of an external file into Revit extensible storage on the element type of a selected element. This command prompts you to select an external file and a Revit BIM element and stores the file data into the Revit extensible storage on the selected element's element type.

Restore: Restore external file from extensible storage on a selected element. This command prompts you to select an element and retrieves the stored external file from its extensible storage.

List: List file data stored in extensible storage. This command Lists all the file data stored in extensible storage on all elements in the current active document.

Remove: Remove file data stored in extensible storage. This command prompts you to select one or more BIM elements and removes the file data stored in their extensible storage. If elements have already been selected prior to launching the command, they are used instead of prompting for a new selection. This can be used to remove stored file data from elements that are not selectable in the user interface, such as element types. They can be pre-selected using Manage > Inquiry > Select by ID instead.

Help: Display the help file. This command displays the help file. It is only available in Revit 2012. In Revit 2013, you can hover over a command button and press the F1 key instead.

The commands are located on the Extensible Storage panel in the Add-Ins ribbon tab.

As always, we look for feedback on these plugins at labs.plugins@autodesk.com. Although these plugins are intended as learning aids for would-be programmers, they are also useful as utilities as posted. Often the plugin authors update them in response to feedback. So please feel free to share your thoughts.

April 10, 2012

Better late than never. We held this one because we wanted to get it right before posting for download. The ADN plugin of the month is Material Profiler for Autodesk Inventor. You can download it for free from the Autodesk Labs web site:

This plugin comes to us from Developer Consultant, Philippe Leefsma, and is a design tool that allows you to visualize information concerning the various materials used inside your assembly. The materials from the top level assembly to all of its sub-assemblies and their components are listed by the plug-in interface. How handy is that? This is the first in a new breed of plugins that is compatible with Inventor 2013 (required for this plugin).

As always, we look for feedback on these plugins at labs.plugins@autodesk.com. Although these plugins are intended as learning aids for would-be programmers, they are also useful as utilities as posted. Often the plugin authors update them in response to feedback. So please feel free to share your thoughts.

Autodesk Labs features some of the work of ADN via the Plugin of the Month program. You can download these plugins (which are ready to use as provided but also include the source code if you want to modify them):

Jim Quanci is Director of the ADN. He recently shared three success stories with us regarding ADN.

Lighting Analysts, Inc. launched the first fully-integrated Add-in lighting software for Autodesk Revit called ElumTools, in September 2011 and already has 69 companies using the software, with anywhere from 1 to 5 seats. ElumTools offers smooth workflow within Revit in calculating point-by-point illuminance (footcandles) for a typical Room or Space. The calculations can be done within seconds once lighting fixture families and materials are validated for accurate lighting calculations (a straight-forward ElumTools process). Multiple Rooms or Spaces can be computed at once and lighting results evaluated using ElumTools interactive visualization. This all adds up to a tremendous amount of time saved integrating lighting with Revit when compared to the previous and often painful exercise of exporting to another software program, then manually integrating results back into Revit.

COINS Framing compliments AutoCAD Architecture and AutoCAD MEP and helps produce sophisticated timber and lightweight steel framing models. This application is used by various industries including Homebuilders for house design, optimizing timbers against stock lengths, schedules for stick-build, or manufacturing drawings and saw files for factory-based panelization; by Steel panelization sub-contractors for designing steel panels from Architectural drawings, to panelize in the factory, or ship to site as a "do-it- yourself" pack of pre-cut pieces; and by internal partitioning companies for using the results for coordination with the primary contractor and the MEP sub-contractors from within Navisworks. This application also produces fully dimensioned manufacturing drawings complete with schedules, which can then be exported to cutting saws. These drawings are also 'live' which implies that as the model is altered, the manufacturing drawing will instantly update itself.

Get The Point, LLC (GTP) provides tools that support laying out of construction sites by converting points from CAD and BIM models to the real world construction site. GTP's Total Station Solution makes it possible to locate real world position of building components (foundations, walls, slabs, decks, etc.) using their plugins on Autodesk’s design applications including AutoCAD, Revit and Navisworks and transferring the information to the robotic 'Total Station' hardware. These tools help shoot hundreds of layout points a day on the site with increased accuracy than manual point placement tools and also saves hours which are otherwise spent in annotating and dimensioning the construction drawings by the CAD department in any organization. Getting the BIM data to the field has always been challenging, time consuming and prone to manual errors - using the tools from GTP makes BIM models constructible, increases productivity from office to construction site, reduces re-work and helps realize savings in field layout time.

So based on Jim's examples, it's great to see how ADN extends the ability of Autodesk design applications to improve design workflows. You too can be a part of that. Examples from the ADN Plugin of the Month are a great place to start.

Knowing this, often the developers make updates in response to customer feedback. In this case, the CloneFolder capability of HierarchyClone for Inventor plugin was recently updated. The changes include:

A grid shows the referenced files and provides the ability of editing the names of the files.

Support for Russian and Chinese languages.

The New File Name column has a right-click Replace menu that allows a find and replace on the file names.

The Sync Part Number column is added to the grid to check off whether or not to change the Part Number to match the new file name.

The interface is resizable.

The help button (on left-bottom corner) opens the help document.

A splash screen is added to show when CloneFolder starts.

The Active Project feature allows selection of which project to open.

Plugin of the Month developers do aim to please! The updated version is available for download from the Catalog page under the Inventor section.

The self-paced guide can definitely get you started. You can also get a leg up with the Autodesk Developer Network plugins of the month. These free nuggets of extra functionality are downloadable from Autodesk Labs and include the source code. This is not a joke. They really are. Even if you're not yet a programmer, you can peruse the lines of code and modify them to meet your needs.

This month's plugin is brought to you by Marat Mirgaleev. As the plugin's name suggests, this plugin can be used to create a 3D Polyline from a selected part of a Pipe Network for AutoCAD Civil 3D. To do this it asks the user to select the starting and ending Pipe or Structure, and then finds the shortest path between them.

In addition to the source code, the plugin comes precompiled so it's ready to use right away. It also includes a Read Me file with all the meaty details. Please give this a try and let us know your thoughts at labs.plugins@autodesk.com.

March 05, 2012

The character of Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future in Charles Dickens' classic story of A Christmas Carol. You can visit the catalog page to download Plugins of the Month Past, Present, and Future. This classic page has all of the plugins from August 2009 when Kean Walmsley started this idea, and our plan is to post all plugins there until the Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) Plugin of the Month program graduates from Autodesk Labs.

The catalog has free plugins for AutoCAD, Inventor, Revit, and 3ds Max. The ADN plugins include the source code to encourage customization for additional or user-specific functionality.

February 17, 2012

The ADN Plugin of the Month exists to show would-be developers how easy it is to personally extend the functionality of our design applications. That's why all of the plugins of the month come with the source code. You can see a complete list of past and current plugins in the catalog.

In addition to providing getting-started training material for would-be-developers, many Autodesk customers download these simply for their utility. That's why it is quite common for the ADN team to make updates to these plugins in response to customer requests. The latest update is BrowsePhotosynth for AutoCAD. These plugin changes were made in response to service URL changes to PhotoSynth by Microsoft.

The ADN Plugin of the Month catalog page has plugins for AutoCAD, Inventor, and Revit. Within each section per design application, the plugins are listed from newest to oldest. You will find the BrowsePhotosynth plugin under the AutoCAD section in the October 2010 slot.

February 06, 2012

Ever wonder how Revit add-ons work? Ever wonder what source code looks like? Of course you have, who hasn't? You can find out with the Autodesk Developer Network plugins of the month. These free nuggets of extra functionality are downloadable from Autodesk Labs and include the source code. Even if you're not a programmer, you can peruse the lines of code and get an understanding of what goes on under the hood.

This month's plugin is brought to you by China DevTech Supervisor, Joe Ye. As the plugin's name suggests, this plugin can be used to generate multiple adjacent levels with one command. It is compatible with Revit Architecture 2012.

In addition to the source code, the plugin comes precompiled so it's ready to use right away. It also includes a Read Me file with all the gory details. Please give this a try and let us know your thoughts at labs.plugins@autodesk.com.

January 16, 2012

As I have mentioned many times, the ADN Plugin of the Month exists to show would-be developers how easy it is to personally extend the functionality of our design applications. That’s why all of the plugins of the month come with the source code. You can see a complete list of past and current plugins in the catalog.

In addition to providing training material for development, many Autodesk customers download these simply for their utility. That’s why it is quite common for the ADN team to make updates to these plugins in response to customer requests. The latest update is ScriptPro 2.0 for AutoCAD 2008 and later versions.

ScriptPro 2.0 is a batch processing utility that applies a set of commands to multiple drawings. Simply specify a script file that contains the commands you want to run on a single drawing, and then use ScriptPro 2.0 to apply that script to as many drawings as you like. ScriptPro 2.0 handles opening and closing each drawing for you. ScriptPro 2.0 takes AutoCAD scripting to a new level with an easy-to-use interface, logging, reusable project files and robust error recovery so your processing continues even when AutoCAD can't.

Based on your feedback to labs.plugins@autodesk.com, as noted in the Read Me included in the download, this latest update includes:

Supports both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems.

Keywords can be used to specify the current file name and its directory. When ScriptPro runs, it replaces each keyword with the correct value from the current drawing.

Option provided (via the options dialog) for the ability to run scripts before opening drawing files (required for scripts performing recovery operations).

The ADN Plugin of the Month catalog page has plugins for AutoCAD, Inventor, and Revit. Within each section per design application, the plugins are listed from newest to oldest. You will find the ScriptPro 2.0 plugin under the AutoCAD section in the November 2010 slot.

January 03, 2012

Each month a member of the Autodesk Developer Network, not-necessarily an Autodesk employee, brings you a plugin that includes the source code. You can use the plugin as provided or extend it to meet your needs by working with the source code. The goal is to show you how easy it is to extend the power of Autodesk design applications. This month’s plugin is:

The plugin was developed by Senior Developer Consultant, Augusto Goncalves, who happens to be an Autodesk employee, but plugins can come from any ADN member. As its name suggests, this plugin generates an AutoCAD Civil 3D TIN (triangulated irregular network) Surface below an AutoCAD solid element.

There are some issues you should be aware of.

Users of AutoCAD Civil 3D may encounter problems with points at the same elevation, or drastic changes of elevation (e.g., the plane of the surface changing). In these situations, the generated surface is less accurate in these areas. Users can manually add breaklines to adjust the behavior.

High density values can cause the application to hang due to the large volume of points generated. For these situations, users should consider starting with small values to obtain initial surfaces.

The plugin is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit versions of AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012. So please take a cut at using this technology preview, and let us know how it turns out at labs.plugins@autodesk.com. To get started, you should:

November 21, 2011

With the Thanksgiving holiday approaching and Autodesk University almost upon us, I decided to release the December ADN Plugin of the Month early. Fear not, you can still get the November ADN Plugin, String Search for Revit, from the ADN Plugin Catalog page:

As noted in its read me, this plugin can be used to copy and rename Inventor IAM/IDW/DWG file along with any files it references (including substitute parts and OLE references). If the assembly/drawing to be cloned is large, the cloning process may be time-consuming. In this case, it is recommend to use the CloneFolder application to perform this work in the background rather than tying up your running Inventor application.

This month's plugin was written by Barbara Han with significant contributions from Vladimir Ananiev and feedback from Xiaodong Liang, Ishwar Nagwani, Philippe Leefsma, and Kean Walmsley. Way to go gang! Let us know what you think of their work at labs.plugins@autodesk.com.

October 27, 2011

This month's plugin comes to us from our own Jeremy Tammik of the Autodesk Developer Technical Services team.

As its name suggests, this plugin allows you to search Revit project elements and their parameter values for a given text string. The plugin has been tested with Revit Architecture 2011 and 2012, but should work for the other 32-bit and 64-bit flavors of Revit.

If you are installing the plugin for Revit 2012, you will want to unblock the zip file before doing so.

As a plugin of the month, the download includes the source code. The source code: gets installed to a "Source" folder beneath the plugin's installed location, has been provided as a Visual Studio 2010 project containing the C# code, but is not required to run the plugin. The source code is provided to inspire would-be developers to see how easy it is to extend the functionality of Revit.

So please share your stories of success or failure using the plugin with us at labs.plugins@autodesk.com. We'd only be especially thrilled to hear if you have extended the application by modifying the source code.

September 30, 2011

The October Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) Plugin of the Month is brought to you by our own Manufacturing Technical Consultant, Jan Liska. It was reviewed and enhanced by our own Developer Consultant, Philippe Leefsma.

As an Inventor 2011 or 2012 user, the LinkParameters allow you to easily create dependencies between parameters of various parts and sub-assemblies in the context of the top-level assembly in which they reside. You can visually select a parameter from a source component and link its value to a specific parameter in a target component. The plugin is based on the iLogic functionality that was introduced in Inventor 2011. It automatically generates the iLogic code required to link the values of the parameters for you, so you don't need to write any iLogic instructions.

Inventor users can use this add-on as supplied; however, if you have ever considered writing your own Inventor plugins, the source code has been provided as a Visual Studio 2008 project containing C# code (not required to run the plug-in). Come on - you can do it.

Once loaded, an additional button is inserted in the slideout menu of the iLogic panel, in the Manage Tab of the Assembly Ribbon. This functionality is only usable from within an assembly. When you run the LinkParameters command, a new modeless form is displayed where you can select source and target components. You can then create links between parameters by drag-n-dropping parameters from the source to the target list view.

Please give this a try and let us know how it works for you at labs.plugins@autodesk.com. We're particularly kean on hearing any stories of how you may have extended the functionality for your own purposes by modifying the source code.

August 26, 2011

The September Autodesk Developer Network Plugin of the Month is TransTips for AutoCAD, Inventor, Revit, and 3ds Max. You can download this free plugin (which includes the source code as well as ready to use binaries) from the Autodesk Labs site:

This plugin comes to us from Kean Walmsley of Through The Interface fame. TransTips translates the contents of tooltips in various Autodesk products automatically into one of 35+ languages via the Bing online translation service. The translated text is stored in a local cache of XML files, which can also be edited and provided with the plugin, should you wish to provide improved translations for certain tooltips.

The plugin has been tested with AutoCAD 2012, Revit 2012, Inventor 2012, and 3ds Max 2012. This is the first Plugin of the Month for 3ds Max. Before attempting to install this plugin, you must right- click the ZIP file in Windows Explorer, select "Properties" and "Unblock." This allows Autodesk 2012 design applications to load the contents safely. For more information on this issue, see my earlier blog post where I suggested that .NET get more fiber in its diet.

Kean shared some notes as part of supplying this plugin:

Although users outside of countries whose first language is English are adept at using our applications in English, this plugin will help determine if there is benefit for having tooltip assistance in the native language even though the user interface remains in English. It's really about enabling our products to work for people speaking languages into which we don't localize our software.

The plugin has not deliberately disabled translation into languages for which Autodesk does localize, so users can evaluate the plugin with those versions, where they exist.

Machine translation works well for some languages and less well for others. Your feedback can help us pinpoint which are which.

Over time we expect this to improve – we're working with Microsoft to help this happen, but ultimately people should not expect perfect translations.

We hope partners choose to help improve the automatic translations by post-editing the XML cache and deploying the edited files to their users.

In time we may look at some kind of crowdsourcing mechanism for this, but the first priority is to get feedback on R1.

Please try TransTips and let us know what you think at labs.plugins@autodesk.com. We'd love to hear your thoughts on how well the Bing translation service does as well as how useful translated tooltips are for you in your daily use of our design applications.

August 01, 2011

August is upon us, so it's time for another Autodesk Developer Network Plugin of the Month. This month's plugin is Wall Opening Area for Autodesk Revit. You can download this plugin, including its source code, from the Autodesk Labs web site.

Kean Walmsley included this note from Augusto Goncalves - the plugin's author.

In the process of cost estimation, the areas of walls are used to contract external firms to build them. For many companies in many countries, like Brazil and Germany, the wall area used on contracts do not consider openings smaller than 2 square meters (approximately 21.5 square feet), mainly because the extra work required to build the opening is paid by the extra money that came from the material/work not used.

With this in mind, this plug-in of the month calculates the area of openings on a wall and sums these areas into two custom shared parameters of the wall:

Therefore, for cost estimation, the area used is the ‘Area’ built-in parameter calculated by Revit, which is actually the net area, plus the ‘Opening Area Smaller Max’ custom parameter calculated by this plug-in.

July 20, 2011

The intent of the Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) Plugin of the month program is to encourage programming with our design applications. That's why we include the source code. You can check out the list of plugins for AutoCAD, Inventor, and Revit at:

In addition to being stellar programming examples, the ADN plugins provide useful functionality. As such, the developers routinely update them in response to feedback at labs.plugins@autodesk.com. With this in mind, there was a recent update of the File Upgrader for Revit. You can use this plugin to batch upgrade previous versions of Revit files to the Revit 2012 format. This utility tool is intended to help upgrade family contents, but you can also use it to upgrade project files. As included in its read me, and all ADN Plugins of the Month come with read me files, the changes for this version include:

Support wider range of source filename lengths (including single character file names)

Handle situations where multi-level nested source sub-folders are devoid of Revit files (except for the last sub-folder).

Set the focus of the list box in the user interface dialog to show the new entries being logged.

Reflect the progress of the upgrade more correctly especially in cases where there are files not matching the upgrade file types in the source folder.

When using this plug-in, avoid placing the destination folder as a subfolder of the source folder. It doesn't handle that. The source code is supplied. Anyone care to try their hand at fixing that?

July 01, 2011

The ADN Plugin of the Month technology preview allows you to download an add-in for one of our design applications that includes a pre-made working version as well as the source code for the add-in. It is meant to inspire you on-the-fence-about-programming Labs community members into developing your own add-ins. Learn more about them on Autodesk Labs.

The plugin for July is PointLinker for Inventor. This add-in was written by Xiaodong Liang of the Developer Technical Services team.

As noted in the read me:

Inventor can import point data from a Microsoft Excel file, but once the data has been imported, the link with Excel is not retained. If the user then updates the point data in the Excel file, the data must be manually re-imported and the associated model re-constructed. This is a time consuming and inefficient exercise.

The Point Linker for Inventor tool was developed to allow Inventor users to import points from an Excel file and retain a link to that file. The user can import data (as with the existing command), update with new data, or resolve to another Excel file.

The plugin is compatible with Inventor 2009-2012. Please give it a try and let us know what you think at labs.plugins@autodesk.com.

This plugin can be used to batch upgrade previous versions of Revit files to the Revit 2012 format. It was developed by Senior Developer Consultant, Saikat Bhattacharya, of the Autodesk Developer Technical Services team.

This utility tool is intended to help upgrade family contents.

You can also use it to upgrade project files.

So convert some files and let us know what you think at labs.plugins@autodesk.com. When using it to convert a bunch of Revit files in folders, make sure the target folder is not nested inside the source folder, or the tool will recursively process the files more than once.

May 20, 2011

The Microsoft .NET Framework is a programming and run-time environment that runs on Microsoft Windows. Programs written for the .NET Framework execute in a software environment known as the Common Language Runtime (CLR). The CLR is an application virtual machine instead of accessing the hardware directly. A program written for .NET requires that the .NET framework must be installed before the new program can run. source: wikipedia.org

Many of the Autodesk Developer Network Plugins of the Month are developed using the .NET framework. In an email exchange with a customer who was having trouble loading the Room/Door Renumbering Plugin for Revit, Senior Manager, Worldwide DevTech, Kean Walmsley, noted:

Many of the 2012 family of products use version 4 of the .NET Framework. .NET 4.0 implements slightly more stringent security than prior versions of the framework: if a Dynamically Loadable Library (DLL) is suspected as having been downloaded from the web – as is clearly the case with our “Plugins of the Month” – the .NET 4.0 runtime will treat that DLL as if it has been loaded from a network share. And as many of you have found out, from trying to load DLLs from network shares, this results in a reduced set of privileges on the local machine, which can often result in a load error such as this one:

Cannot load assembly. Error details: System.IO.FileLoadException: Could not load file or assembly 'file:///C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2012 – English\ADNPlugin-QRCodes.dll' or one of its dependencies. Operation is not supported. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131515) File name: 'file:/// C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2012 – English\ADNPlugin-QRCodes.dll ' ---> System.NotSupportedException: An attempt was made to load an assembly from a network location which would have caused the assembly to be sandboxed in previous versions of the .NET Framework. This release of the .NET Framework does not enable CAS policy by default, so this load may be dangerous. If this load is not intended to sandbox the assembly, please enable the loadFromRemoteSources switch. See http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=155569 for more information.

The CLR has less control over hardware that is not local. Kean recommended a solution:

The solution is straightforward: you simply need to “Unblock” the DLL by right-clicking on it in Explorer and selecting “Properties” and “Unblock”. It’s actually better to do this for the .ZIP prior to extracting the contents, as this makes sure all files contained in the archive are unblocked. For example, if you were to do this for the QRCodes for AutoCAD plugin:

Thanks Kean. You can peruse the current and past Plugins of the Month:

In addition to providing the source code, the ADN team often updates the plugins in response to customer feedback so that these plugins are not only educational, but useful to customers who might not have aspirations of ever programming. Such is the case with this month's thread modeler for Autodesk Inventor.

Chris Hutchinson from Charlotte, North Carolina wrote in. Chris is the Design Tech. at a machine shop and uses Inventor 2012 for creation of parts and metal fabrication drawings. So he noticed immediately that the plugin was not creating the proper coil rotation for the threads it created, so he inquired:

After trying ThreaderModeler 1.1, I noted that it cuts Left Hand threads from Inventor 2012 as Right Hand threads and Right Hand threads from Inventor 2012 as Left Hand threads. When I edited the coil to change the rotation, Inventor 2012 crashed to the desktop. I am using Win7 64-bit OS.

Developer Consultant, Philippe Leefsma, sprang into action and updated the plugin. On Friday I placed in on the Labs site for download. Please take it for a turn and let us know what you think at labs.plugins@autodesk.com.

Ensuring the left hand knows what the right hand is doing is alive in the lab.

May 09, 2011

Based on your feedback to labs.plugins@autodesk.com, Developer Consultant, Philippe Leefsma, has provided an update to this month's Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) Plugin of the Month. You can download it from the Autodesk Labs site:

This update ensures that the minimal thread pitch allowed to be modelized is 0.0007 inches (or 0.01778 millimeters). Philippe notes that you should keep in mind that around this small scale, the quality of the modelization will look very poor in Inventor. The source code is included for those who would like to examine just how it works or extend the functionality for themselves.

May 02, 2011

Each month a member of the Autodesk Developer Network, not-necessarily an Autodesk employee, brings you a plugin that includes the source code. You can use the plugin as provided or extend it to meet your needs by working with the source code. This month’s plugin is:

The plugin was developed by Developer Consultant, Philippe Leefsma, who happens to be an Autodesk employee, but plugins can come from any ADN member. As indicated in its Read Me (all plugins come with one):

The ThreadModeler tool has been developed to allow Inventor users to more easily create realistic modelized threads based on an existing Inventor thread feature. Through functionality provided by the tool, users are able to select an existing thread feature in the model, and the ThreadModeler will then generate a realistic thread based on the feature properties. The ThreadModeler can reliably generate a thread which can save a lot of time and effort when compared with a manual approach, and bring models a higher degree of realism.

The plugin is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Inventor 2011 and later.

April 25, 2011

As I have mentioned many times, the ADN Plugin of the Month exists to show would-be developers how easy it is to personally extend the functionality of our design applications. That’s why all of these plugins come with the source code. You can see a complete list of past and current plugins in the catalog.

In addition to providing training material for development, many Autodesk customers download these simply for their utility. That’s why it is quite common for the ADN team to make updates to these plugins in response to customer requests. Here’s how the latest one went.

On April 19, Gaudenz Jehli of Lazzarini AG emailed labs.plugins@autodesk.com: "I'm getting an error with the FacetCurve plugin. I'm on WinXP 64 German with German AutoCAD 2011 64-bit."

That same day, Kean Walmsley responded with: “Can you please make sure you’re using version 1.0.1? I have attached it, for your convenience. This version should work on AutoCAD 2011 64-bit. Please let me know how you get on.”

On April 20, I posted version 1.0.1 to the Labs site making it available for everyone to download.

These things don’t have to be any harder than that.

The ADN Plugin of the Month catalog page has plugins for AutoCAD, Inventor, and Revit. Within each section per design application, the plugins are listed from newest to oldest. You will find the FacetCurve plugin under the AutoCAD section in the January 2010 slot.

April 18, 2011

The Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) sponsors a plugin of the month which provides useful functionality with source code to show would-be developers just how easy it is to extend Autodesk design application functionality. I don't think Kean Walmsley has ever said, "It's so easy, even a cave man can do it." but I think that is the DevTech team's goal. This month's plugin is an ASHRAE Viewer for Revit. You can download it from the Labs site:

In addition to providing a new plugin each month, based on your feedback at labs.plugins@autodesk.com, they often make improvements to previously released plugins. The latest versions of all of the past plugins can be obtained from the plugins catalog page which is sorted by design application and release date.

This plugin can be used to view American Society of Heating Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Table Data and accompanying images explaining the data. Revit MEP utilizes the ASHRAE Duct Fitting Database to lookup coefficients for determining pressure losses through duct fittings. This add-in provides a way to view the illustrations and the data table of available duct fittings from the database. Specifically the ASHRAE Viewer add-in provides the following functionality:

Visualization of the selected fitting – when a fitting is selected in the add-in, the graphics describing the application of the coefficient table is shown.

Display of the coefficient table – by clicking on the Show Table button, the user can see the lookup table that Revit uses for the selected fitting.

Table assignment for multiple fittings at once – allows the user to select multiple similar fittings and assign them the same table in one operation.

The plugin was developed by Martin Schmid of Autodesk's AEC Industry Success team. In addition to the standard read me, he even included a user manual that formed the basis of this blog article. Thanks Martin. So give this one a try and let us know what you think at labs.plugins@autodesk.com.

Showing you how to extend the value of our design applications is alive in the lab.

The Plugin of the Month for February 2010 was Screenshot for Inventor. This plugin can be used with Inventor to simplify the process of capturing images of parts of documents, or the entire document or application window. It optionally allows you to remap the background to white and the foreground to black, convert the entire image to grayscale, as well as sending the captured image directly to a printer.

In addition to releasing a new plugin each month, the ADN team often updates previously released ones. On Monday I posted an updated Screenshot for Inventor. Based on your feedback, as documented in its read me file, the version 1.1.1 changes include two defect corrections:

Fixed the problem of selecting a region in perspective view

Fixed the problem of printing on a 64-bit OS

This latest update merely includes a VB.Net project file for those who wish to modify or extend the functionality.

March 15, 2011

While on vacation at the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, I got an updated RoomRenumbering for Revit ADN Plugin of the Month. On Wednesday (March 9) I posted it to the Autodesk Labs site. Upon my return to work on Thursday (March 10), I even posted another update. With these fast and frequent updates, the ADN team are regular riders of the storm.

Restructured the code (source included in the download) to make it much easier to add support for other object types

With this March 10 update, this plugin can be used to renumber or re-assign the "Number" properties of rooms or "Mark" property of doors in the order that the user selects while avoiding duplicated assignments. The command allows the user to specify the starting number with the option of the prefix and suffix added.

So give the plugin a whirl and try to set the night on fire and let us know if you don't love it madly at labs.plugins@autodesk.com.

February 28, 2011

Historically the ADN (Autodesk Developer Network) plugins of the month have been dominated by AutoCAD. This year we are keen on featuring plugins from ADN members who write them for some of our other applications like Inventor and Revit. So it should come as no surprise that this month's plugin is related to Revit.

Recall that each plugin includes the source code so prospective developers can see just how easy extending the functionality of our design applications actually is. Providing the source code also allows users to modify or extend the functionality to suit their particular needs. Each plugin includes a read me with all of the skinny related to the plugin. This month's read me mentions:

This plugin can be used to renumber or re-assign the "Number" properties of rooms in the order that the user selects while avoiding duplicated assignments. The command allows the user to specify the starting number with the option of the pre and suffix added.

This plugin has been tested with Revit Architecture 2011 and requires the .NET Framework 3.5. A pre-built version of the plugin has been provided which should work on 32- and 64-bit Windows systems. The plugin has not been tested with all Revit verticals, but should work. The source code has been provided as a Visual Studio 2008 project containing C# code (not required to run the plugin).

The Read Me also covers how to install and uninstall, how to use the plugin, known issues, and even includes a reference for further reading.

Let's make a deal. Please renumber some rooms and let us know what you think at labs.plugins@autodesk.com. In return, we'll keep the plugins coming. Thanks to Senior Developer Consultant, Adam Nagy, who developed this plugin.

February 02, 2011

The February ADN Plugin of the Month is the result of a team effort. It was suggested by Paul le Tissier and developed by Kean Walmsley. Thorsten Meinecke and Scott McFarlane provided testing and enhancement suggestions. I have placed it on the Autodesk Labs site for download.

This month's plugin can be used to determine the average of a number of selected points inside AutoCAD. The plugin registers a transparent command that can be called from within 2D and 3D modeling operations, inputting the calculated point directly to AutoCAD's command-line.

The plugin has been tested with AutoCAD 2007 onwards and requires the .NET Framework 3.51 or higher. A pre-built version of the plugin has been provided which works on 32-bit and 64-bit Windows systems. Though the plugin has not been tested with all AutoCAD-based products, it should work.

To demonstrate just how easy it is to develop a plugin, the source code is included for your perusal. Let us know what you think at labs.plugins@autodesk.com with feedback, requests for enhancements, or success stories of how you have enhanced it yourself.

January 05, 2011

Though collaboration is moving in the direction of happening online, getting an accurate plot for those who still use paper is critically important. As such having layers plot in a desired order is still key to many users. With this in mind, we offer the January ADN plugin of the month:

This month's plugin can be used to reorder AutoCAD objects by their layer. With a dirt simple user interface, you simply select the layer you want to reposition in the list, and then press the move up or move down button to change its relative order. Objects on top of the list plot last. With this in mind, you should move your solid fill and hatching layers to the bottom of the list. You can also get fancy by sorting and reversing the plot ordering of your layers.

Like many previous plugins of the month, DrawOrder By Layer has been tested with AutoCAD 2007 and later versions. Although not specifically tested, it should also be compatible with the vertical flavors of AutoCAD such as AutoCAD Civil 3D. Note that as a Microsoft .NET solution, you cannot run the plugin from a network share drive. Please install it locally. Thanks to Terry Dotson from DotSoft who developed this plugin and Kean Walmsley for his additional edits. As always, the source code is included for your perusal. Let us know what you think at labs.plugins@autodesk.com with feedback, requests for enhancements, or success stories of how you have enhanced it yourself.

December 23, 2010

It's no secret that the point of the Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) Plugin of the Month is to encourage would-be developers to develop their own plugins for AutoCAD, Inventor, etc. That's why we include the source code with each plugin. We want everyone to see how easy it is. A side benefit of this process is that many customers just want to use the plugin instead of developing their own. We are fine with that too.

Towards that end, the ADN team routinely updates previously released plugins in response to customer feedback.

Last month they did so for BrowsePhotosynth for AutoCAD. As they do with each update, the read me identifies the changes:

This plugin comes to us from Developer Consultant, Augusto Gonçalves and Senior Manager of Worldwide DevTech, Kean Walmsley. As its name suggests, the plugin can be used embed Quick Response Codes in AutoCAD drawings. Whereas traditional bar codes are 1-dimensional, QR Codes are 2-dimensional bar codes that can be used to encode various types of data. As mentioned in the read me, one likely use of this tool would be to encode data into drawings' title sheets for later decoding via a mobile device at the job site.

The plugin has been tested with AutoCAD 2007 onwards. You can use it with your 32-bit or 64-bit AutoCAD. As a plugin of the month, the download includes the source code. The source code: gets installed to a "Source" folder beneath the plugin's installed location, has been provided as a Visual Studio 2008 project containing the C# code, but is not required to run the plugin. The source code is provided to inspire would-be developers to see how easy it is to extend the functionality of AutoCAD.

So please share your stories of success or failure using the plugin with us at labs.plugins@autodesk.com. We would be especially thrilled to hear how you have extended the application by modifying the source code.

November 17, 2010

Yesterday Kean Walmsley and the Dev Techs provided me with an updated Clipboard Manager for AutoCAD. Recall that the Clipboard Manager for AutoCAD was the October 2009 Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) plugin of the month. The Clipboard Manager can be used with AutoCAD to manage multiple clipboard entries - storing and renaming them for later use.